


Gymnasium Satchel Sherlock Holmes

by okapi



Category: Real Person Fiction, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Crack, Gym bags, Humor, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Silly, Sir Arthur Loathes You, Story: The Adventure of the Empty House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 06:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12030177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Oh, you think this notion of ‘Gymnasium Satchel Sherlock Holmes’ is a modern invention, do you?As always, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle begs to differ.And is quite disappointed in you.ACD. Crack. Humour. Post-Reichenbach Reunion AU + ACD RPF. For the Gym Bag Lock Collection.





	Gymnasium Satchel Sherlock Holmes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a collection of stories inspired by an alternate script for BBC Sherlock TSoT in which Sherlock likes hiding in gym bags.

_The observations of the plain-clothes detective were absurd and I knew for certain that had my late friend Mister Sherlock Holmes heard them he would've told the fellow as much and named the true murderer of the Honourable Ronald Adair, right then and there._

_Holmes never could resist a touch of the dramatic._

_I withdrew in some disgust and weaved my way through the loafers on the pavement. Once free of the crowd, I allowed my feet to decide their own path and direction._

_I had nowhere to be. I had no one to see._

_Holmes was dead. Mary was dead._

_I was adrift once more in the cesspool of London, once more counting myself amongst the loungers and the idlers of the Empire._

_Draining._

_I walked._

_Destination?_

_Anywhere but Baker Street._

_But I sought in vain to flee the painful memories of the past, for as I turned a corner, I passed a grey door and a faded sign that I recognised from my days as Holmes’s Boswell and companion._

_The Catallus Gymnasium._

_I took two steps forward, stopped, turned, took two steps back, and, whether out of acute madness or chronic grief, I’ll never know, pushed at the door._

_It opened with a loud, stiff creak._

_I peeked inside._

_The space was empty, perhaps even deserted, yet I found its church-like silence and solemn shadows oddly welcoming._

_I entered and was immediately beset by the ludicrous urge to light a candle._

_A ghost of a boxing ring stood in centre of the space. Surrounding it were a few wooden benches in various states of decrepitude._

_As I approached the ring, mind and heart flooded with memories of Holmes the pugilist._

_He had been magnificent!_

_Graceful. Ruthless. Brilliant._

_Cross-hits under the jaw. Straight lefts._

_A lithesome David felling Goliaths twice his size!_

_I circled the ring and smiled. I heard the noise of past crowds. I saw the billowing dust clouds of past bouts._

_I remembered the wagering and the worrying, the stirring pride and the sweat and the stories and the patching-up._

_I lit a cigarette and was just coming to the pitiful conclusion that the ache in my chest was my sole companion in a joyless existence when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something large and brown._

_On closer inspection, I realised that it was a satchel, an enormous leather sack of the kind that’d held all my worldly possessions when I’d landed on Portsmouth jetty._

_And as mine had, it bore sewn patches with the names of far-off lands._

_I stared._

_It looked strange, just sitting on the ground, abandoned._

_It looked even stranger when it began to move._

_I gripped the handle of my Malacca walking stick and slowly raised it in the air like a club. Then I inched closer to the bundle, noting that the buckles were already unfastened._

_It was wriggling now._

_My heart beat faster. I held my breath, preparing to defend myself against whatever animal it contained._

_Then, suddenly, brown leather straps were thrown back and I could see its muzzle._

_Sherlock Holmes._

_A grey mist swirled before my eyes, and the last thing I remember was the ground as it rose up to greet me._

_When the fog cleared, I found my collar-ends undone, the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips, and the scent of leather filling my nostrils. Holmes was bending over my chair—the chair of my Kensington study, I realised with much alarm—a flask in his hand._

_I shifted in the chair and yelped at two more realisations._

_The mysterious brown satchel was on the floor near the wall._

_And I hurt. My whole body ached horridly, my lower back and neck in particular._

_“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand and one apologies. A thousand because I had no idea that you would be so affected. And one because I thought you would fit much better in the satchel that you did.”_

_“Holmes, you bas—!”_

* * *

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“Doctor Watson doesn't use language like that, dear.”

“Well, maybe this once. After all, it’s quite a shock, my dear Touie!”

“No, Arthur. But even apart from that, it won’t do.”

“And why ever not?

“Because it doesn’t make any sense!” she cried.

“Sense?” He sighed and dropped the paper on the desk. Then he walked to the study windows and gripped the handles tightly. He turned the handles and then with one sharp, sudden motion, opened the windows.

Chanting voices rose from below.

_“BRING HIM BACK! BRING HIM BACK! BRING HIM BACK!”_

He yanked the windows shut, then turned around. “Do _they_ make any sense, my dear?”

“But how could a man of Holmes’s stature fit in a satchel? And why is he in a satchel? A why is he in an abandoned gymnasium? And why does he put Watson in the satchel? There are too many questions, Arthur. The whole notion’s absurd.”

“You know what’s absurd?”

He opened the windows again.

_“BRING HIM BACK! BRING HIM BACK! BRING HIM BACK!”_

“Trample my rhododendron, you lunatics, and I’ll set the hounds on you!” he shouted.

The chorus dissolved into individual voices.

_“Oh, yes?”_

_“Is it the Baskerville hound?”_

_“Yes, send out the hound!”_

_“Will it try to eat us?”_

_“Me, eat me!”_

_“No, eat me!”_

He shut the windows and groaned.

“But Arthur, why not do something simple?” she said. “Like one of those clever disguises? Or something with books? Let’s see,” she walked to the shelves, “here’s _British Birds_. Here’s _The Origins of Tree Worship_. Oh, that sounds interesting. Books make sense. Everybody likes books!”

“I hate books,” he grumbled. “Especially books about detectives that don’t have the good sense to stay dead!”

He stabbed the paper on the desk with a pen-knife.

She frowned, but then asked cheerily, “Well, in that case, how about some tea?”

He nodded. “Yes, that’d be lovely, dear.” Then he shot a glance at the window. “And perhaps my hunting rifle—”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “You solve crimes. You do not commit them.”

As she turned towards the door, she exclaimed,

“Oh, Arthur!”

She knelt and retrieved a large leather satchel that lay crumpled beneath the desk.

She stood, holding it up and looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

He shrugged.

She returned the satchel to its place, then made to leave, pausing at the door.

“They love you, Arthur.”

“They love _him_. I hate him. I’d like to squeeze him into a leather satchel and throw him in the—”

She shut the door behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Post script: I am imagining the satchel to be like the one Andrei Panin's Watson carries in the first episode in the new Russian Holmes stories.
> 
> Post post script: apologies for the plethora of typos. Just when I thought I've got them all, I see another.


End file.
